Can GREEN LANTERNS Trust Their Rings? DAN JURGENS Sows Distrust In GLC as Series Finale Looms

In the current story arc of Green Lanterns, it's difficult for the Corps members to know who to trust and what information is the truth. Their rings, usually reliable, have suddenly started causing division.

Sound familiar? Writer Dan Jurgens admits there might be some metaphors involved that echo the world's current divisive environment and slew of untrustworthy information.

Credit: Marco Santucci/Hi-Fi/Dave Sharpe (DC Comics)

Jurgens, who took over Green Lanterns with issue #50, has been working with artists Mike Perkins and Marco Santucci in a story that kicked off with the murder of a Guardian and has evolved into something - or someone - contaminating the source of power for the Green Lantern rings.

He'll only be on the title for this story arc, however, as all the Green Lantern titles are ending to make way for Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp's upcoming run on The Green Lantern.

Jurgens also said that his story will set up Hal's story for The Green Lantern as well as preparing other characters for what's coming next in other DC books.

With Green Lanterns #53 coming out this week (which exposes the big bad behind it all), Newsarama talked to Jurgens to find out more about the themes he's exploring and why they particularly interested him while working with Simon and Jessica.

Newsarama: Dan, even though Green Lanterns is focused on Simon and Jessica, you're really involving the entire Green Lantern Corps in this story, aren't you?

Dan Jurgens: Yeah, what I wanted to do was, while getting into the relationship between Simon and Jessica, also sort of address their relationships with the Corps itself. I think as we have seen development, especially in Jessica, it's kind of fascinating to me just how she still interacts with the rest of the Corps.

Credit: Marco Santucci/Hi-Fi/Dave Sharpe (DC Comics)

Credit: Marco Santucci/Hi-Fi/Dave Sharpe (DC Comics)

Nrama: The idea of trust is central to this story. Previously, a Green Lantern could count on his ring to tell him or her the truth. But now that the rings are stretching the truth and kind of manipulating people into taking sides against each other. It feels very timely, like the rings are Russian bots or fake news or something…

Jurgens:Are you saying I'm working in metaphor a little bit?

Nrama:Sure feels that way!

Jurgens: Obviously, in many ways, this story does come down to trust and relationships. And just as we're getting deeper into the story, we find out that there's something working to almost put Simon and Jess against each other. That's an element of trust, just in terms of how they relate to each other.

And also, and I'll go back to this again and again, the question of whether or not they can trust their rings.

Credit: Marco Santucci/Hi-Fi/Dave Sharpe (DC Comics)

I think, especially for someone like Jessica, who had a hard time believing in that ring in the first place, there are all sorts of things to explore there. If you are wearing this ring and you're flying through deep space, and you're practically ready to enter Jupiter's orbit or something, how do you really believe, especially if you start to doubt the ring, that yes, it is going to continue to supply you with power and oxygen and everything else you're going to need and that it won't just shrivel up and die in deep space or something like that.

So I think these elements of trust, how the members of the Corps trust each other, how they trust their rings, how they trust the Guardians, are all the big themes that we're playing with here.

Credit: Marco Santucci/Hi-Fi/Dave Sharpe (DC Comics)

Nrama: Since last time we talked, it's been announced that Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp are going to be working on The Green Lantern starting in November. Are you going to be also writing Green Lanterns or are there completely different plans down the road?

Jurgens: No, there are different plans down the road.

My emphasis was on doing this one arc, getting the characters here to the point where a couple of them are going to move on, where some things are set up for Grant and some other DC books moving forward.

Credit: Chris Stevens (DC Comics)

So the emphasis here is really telling a story, playing with some things I've always wants to play with, as far as the Green Lanterns go, and then positioning everything where it needs to be to go forward.

Nrama: Anything else you want to tell people about your work on Green Lanterns?